The man who made car chases look cool

Stunt driver worked on The Italian Job

In the annals of best movie car chase, perennial favourites include Bullitt (1968) with Steve McQueen achieving liftoff in his Ford Mustang along the terraced streets of San Francisco; The French Connection (1971), with Gene Hackman terrorizing blocks of Brooklyn pedestrian traffic in a Pontiac LeMans; and Ronin (1998), with Robert De Niro behind the screeching wheels of a Peugeot on the streets of Paris.

But many moviegoers and stunt lovers might opt for the stunt sequences in the more-lighthearted British-American comic caper, The Italian Job (1969), in which three British Mini Cooper cars outwitted Italian cops through the streets, shopping arcades and sewers of the Italian city of Turin after a gold heist.

French stunt driver Rémy Julienne orchestrated and drove in some of the chase scenes, an unforgettable car ballet in which Julienne's team raced around a sloping car factory roof before driving at 120 km/h up ramps onto a getaway truck travelling at 80 km/h on a motorway outside Turin.

In another scene, he drove the red Mini at 110 km/h over a 60-foot gap between two factory rooftops 50 feet above the ground.

After half a century of risking his life on wheels for movie audiences, he died at 90 on Jan. 21 of the coronavirus at a hospital in Montargis, France, according to his wife, Justine.

“We were very, very lucky to get Rémy Julienne (and his) stunt driving team,” Michael Caine, star of The Italian Job, was once quoted as saying. “Because they (the Minis) were really the stars of the film in a way.”

Sales of the little Mini Cooper and more powerful Cooper S models took off around Europe after the film hit the screens. The movie not only epitomized Britain's “Swinging Sixties” but also precursored the widespread British sentiment that their little island could outsmart Continental Europeans.

Julienne, a former French national motocross champion, also did the stunt-driving on six James Bond movies, body-doubling for several Bond actors.

In all, Julienne was a stunt driver and/or coordinator on no fewer than 1,400 films and TV commercials starting in France in the 1960s.

Rémy Julienne